Are Cuckoo Clocks Crazy?

The question is an honest one : of all the birds in all the land, why is a cuckoo synonymous with crazy?

In recognition of how much cereal the phrase “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” sold, we might to tempted to think the association a peculiar American one. However the common cuckoo bird does not even fly above these shores and the use, as either a noun or an adjective, dates back to the Middle Ages. Thus it predates even the choice of cuckoo for the emblem of the German wall clocks.

The presumptive meaning stems from how unvarying, how monotonous, the call of the male cuckoo is during mating season. To never vary one’s behavior and responses, no matter how circumstances change, can be considered the mark of someone “weak in intellect, common sense, and perhaps sanity.” This connotative definition of cuckoo has included all three.

And when the meaning came to these American shores, replete with some hand swirling pantomime, creators of jingles, cartoons, and advertisements ran with it. The word itself sounds a bit silly on the tongue. It certainly isn’t as harsh as some other terms for deficiencies in sense and sanity. 

So I can be cuckoo for cuckoo clocks and won’t worry that it’s a strange thing. It is no more strange than the winding road that language takes through—and sometimes past—clear meaning.